


happens great, happens sweet

by eurythmix



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Miscommunication, Multi, Pre-Canon, Team as Family, probably anachronistic, who cares i know what you're really here for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:07:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26248438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurythmix/pseuds/eurythmix
Summary: “We still did some good. And you haven’t told them about our wedding.”Andromache barely finished saying the word when Nicolò’s whole body jerks upright, his head almost colliding with the top bunk. “Wedding?” he blurts. “You gotmarried?”A year apart has given Yusuf time to think and the question sits expectantly on his lips. He's just neglected to factor in a few things: a storm, a journey through the North Atlantic, and Quynh.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 60
Kudos: 505





	happens great, happens sweet

**Author's Note:**

> an anon asked me if i had any joe/nicky marriage headcanons and this idea just wouldn't let me go until i wrote it out so. uh. here u go, anon? 
> 
> title from [wasteland, baby!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4rKN_qW5DU) because i am nothing if not utterly predictable
> 
> fun fact! [until the early 13th century it wasn't necessary to have a witness or even a priest at a catholic wedding for it to be legitimate](https://aprilmunday.wordpress.com/2017/09/10/medieval-marriage/) \- just you, your spouse, and a couple of plague rats. kind of like getting married in 2020, i guess.

It's two hours after they’ve departed Ribeira Grande and the squalls have forced them below deck. Only Quynh seems to be in good spirits, moving with the sway of the ship as they stagger to their bunks. “Just like Cape Bon,” she declares, nudging Andromache.

“You and I remember Cape Bon very differently,” Andromache replies with a wry smile. Nicolò, already face-down on the closest bunk, groans.

“Please, no flirting,” he begs. “I’m already ill.” Yusuf tuts and settles beside him, opening up his arms. It’s only been a decade since the four of them were together, but there’s a new casualness to how Nicolò accepts affection; Yusuf doubts his companions can notice, neither so attuned to Nicolò’s minutiae as he is. He supposes the same can be said for Andromache and Quynh, seated on the bunk opposite, not quite touching but together in a way that transcends the physical entirely. Yusuf thinks that maybe, with time, he and Nicolò will be the same.

Andromache is staring at them, brow more relaxed than it had been ten years ago. The time apart has been good for them all, he thinks, and shoots her a reassuring wink before tucking his arms around Nicolò. He presses a kiss to the top notch of his spine, murmurs low and soft when Nicolò nuzzles closer against his chest.

Quynh makes a faint retching noise. “ _You’re_ making _me_ ill,” she mutters. There’s a quicksilver glint to her eyes, a particular kind of sharp humour Yusuf has yet to encounter in any other person. He’s missed her keenly, missed her barbed tongue and warm hands, missed the way she cared so deeply that he couldn’t mistake her teasing for anything but love. Despite the circumstances he’s glad to see her again, watching her lean against Andromache and feeling safe in the knowledge that there’s peace in the family they’ve built. 

“Mashallah,” he whispers against Nicolò’s neck. The hand twined in his squeezes back.

Andromache taps Quynh’s shoulder, rearranges her so that she’s sitting between Andromache’s knees while she plays with her hair. They’ve both grown it out over the break and Yusuf is transfixed as Andromache twists her lover’s strands into an intricate braid with quick, practiced movements. He wonders if Nicolò would grow out his hair if he asked, if he promised to braid it with as much care and focus. 

“So," Andromache says, not looking up from the deft motion of her hands, “how was Medina?”

Yusuf huffs. “Crowded, but beautiful. Đại Việt?”

It’s Quynh who replies. “So much has changed,” she muses. “We were only there in - what was it? Five hundred years ago?” She twists her head around to Andromache, who nods. There’s a muffled snort from Nicolò, but Quynh presses on. “The Imperial Army took control again for some time. We arrived too late to join the revolution.” She sounds disappointed at the missed opportunity and Andromache pauses in her braiding to drop a kiss to the crown of her head.

“We still did some good,” she reminds her. “And you haven’t told them about our wedding.”

She’s barely finished saying the word when Nicolò’s whole body jerks upright, his head almost colliding with the top bunk. “Wedding?” he blurts, all traces of sickness chased from his face by surprise. “You got _married_?”

Quynh throws her head back against Andromache’s shoulder, laughing. "Oh, don’t be offended, Nico, we didn’t plan on it. There was this funny little missionary - Pierre, I think his name was? Or something like that. We intercepted his wagon on the way to a village." She straightens, puffs up her chest, and puts on a Gallic accent so thick Yusuf can barely understand her. “ _Oui, I must save these poor people with the word of the Lord, it is my duty to spread His glory, blah blah, I am a very important idiot_ \- you know how they are, Yusuf.”

“Yes,” Yusuf replies dryly, “I’m aware.” 

“So he says he’ll do anything if we let him go,” Quynh continues, “and while I think we should just throw him on the next merchant ship and be done with it, Andromache has this wonderful idea.”

“I got him to marry us,” Andromache concludes, her eyes bright with the memory. Yusuf can picture the two of them holding this stranger at sword-point, grins broad and sharp; he wonders if they ended up killing the man or let him flee back to France, babbling about the wild warrior women he encountered in the East. His lips are struggling to contain his laughter as Andromache adds, “He looked like he was about to shit himself by the time Quynh had finished her vows.”

“Really?” Quynh says, finger tapping against her chin. “I thought he was going to faint when you said yours.”

“That’s not the point!” Nicolò interrupts, sitting fully upright and taut as a drawn bowstring. “You - you got married!”

Quynh squints at him. “Yes, that’s what we said. Did you hit your head coming below deck?”

“No! No, I just -” he gapes, speechless, gaze flicking from Quynh to Andromache like it’s the first time they’ve met all over again, watching their wounds knit back together by the grace of something beyond comprehension. Dread sours in Yusuf’s gut at the incredulity in his tone, the shocked hunch of his shoulders - there’s something there, something darker than surprise. “ _Married_. You are _wives_.”

“Nicolò,” Andromache says warily, “what are you saying?”

It’s not as if they haven’t come across people like them before, creating lives together and weaving their own futures from the tapestry of a largely uncaring world. It was only a year ago on the way to Medina that they lodged with two travelling scholars who called each other husband, offered advice to Yusuf when he spoke of the terrifying depths of his feelings for Nicolò. _He will test you_ , the elder of the two men had said. He was hundreds of years younger than Yusuf but he still found himself listening attentively, holding strong to every word of wisdom. _He will test you, because love isn’t a trial, although the road to it is. Inshallah, he will learn to walk it with you._

He thought he understood Nicolò then, knew the shape of his guilt and the edges of his faith after all these centuries journeying across the world. He boarded this ship thinking that maybe they had finally fallen in pace with each other, and that by the time they landed in Southampton, he might have the courage to give what they had a name. 

But Nicolò is still gaping, back ramrod straight with shock. “I didn’t think it was possible,” he says after a pause, voice thin. “I didn’t think - for people like us -”

Quynh rubs a hand over her eyes. “I thought we had been over this, Nico,” she says softly, deflated, sounding every one of her several thousand years. Andromache kneads her shoulder reassuringly, not saying a word but fixing Nicolò with a hard, uncompromising stare. “Love like ours - you don’t need to apologise for it. It’s not a mistake.”

But before she has a chance to launch into a spiel they’ve heard a hundred times before, Nicolò shakes his head vigorously. “Oh, no, Quynh, no, I meant - people like _us_.” He gestures to the four of them, a faint blush staining his otherwise drained cheeks. “People who can’t...die.” 

There’s a long beat of quiet, silent save for the creak of timber and caterwaul of the wind outside. Yusuf is frozen, hands hovering above Nicolò’s forearm where he was prepared to pull him back from a fight.

“You know,” Nicolò says, face ablaze, “ _until death us depart_?”

“ _That’s_ what you’re hung up on?” Quynh exclaims, and the moment shatters like glass left too long in a kiln. Andromache has pressed a hand against her mouth, her shoulders shaking with laughter. Yusuf slumps against a support beam, panic bleeding from his skin as quickly as confusion sinks in. 

“You think we can’t get married because we can’t die?”

Nicolò throws his arms in the air. “I don’t know!” he shouts. The blush has spread down his neck and blots the line of his collarbone. “I thought - I don’t - stop laughing!”

Quynh reaches across the gap and pats his knee. “You’re cute, Nico,” she says, sounding as relieved as Yusuf feels. “What, did you think dying got you out of marriage?” She leans back and knocks her head against Andromache’s. “She’s stuck with me until the end.”

“Until the end,” Andromache echoes, so soft and sincere Yusuf considers, not for the first time, that he’s intruding on something far too intimate for his eyes and ears. 

From the way Nicolò has ducked his head, eyes averted, he’s not the only one. “It’s not that,” he mumbles, rubbing at the back of his neck. Dread, abated, comes creeping back, and Yusuf frowns.

“What do you mean?”

Frustration flits across Nicolò’s features and settles deep into the lines of his brow. “It’s just…” he says slowly, rolling the words in his throat before letting them stumble from his lips. “It was not arranged. You _chose_. There was - no reason, beyond love.”

“Is that not reason enough?” Andromache asks quietly.

Nicolò’s lips quirk. “Not where I come from.”

Yusuf is reminded sharply of his parents, the story his mother told him and his brothers about her wedding day. She painted such vivid images of seeing her betrothed for the first time - the lopsided curve of his smile, the coolness of his palms, the soft way his vowels curled around her name. She was sixteen, headstrong and opinionated; if she disapproved, she would not consent. But he was kind - a gentle soul, barely older than her, his words more suited for poetry than trade - and she fell in love with him the moment he made her laugh. Her brother, Wali after their father’s death, said the union was as natural as the two halves of the split moon reuniting.

He knows little of Nicolò’s life before Jerusalem, drops from an overflowing jug. He knows his father was an arrowsmith for the Genoese army, that his mother’s name was Isabella, how he renounced his vows before they were even granted in order to join the holy war. He knows Nicolò had a younger sister who died young. He knows Nicolò would rather die - quite literally - than wade back into the mire of his roots. 

“You know people marry for love,” Yusuf finds himself saying, a tight edge to his voice. Nicolò turns that sad smile to him and it’s like the years have broken open between them, exposing a line straight to the fractal of Nicolò that exists beyond the grasp of time - a Nicolò who doesn’t know anything but his own four walls and a restlessness that prickles like wildfire across his skin. Yusuf is suddenly desperate, fervent; he takes Nicolò’s hand with both of his and presses his thumbs against his palm, insistent. “It’s not always like that.”

 _It won’t be like that,_ he doesn’t say. _Not for us_.

“Well, then, it’s settled.” Quynh claps her hands, startling Yusuf from his thoughts. “You should get married.”

He doesn’t dare breathe. Nicolò is silent, contemplative; Andromache looks torn between apologising on Quynh’s behalf and offering her services as officiant. The air has seized, thick like molasses, waiting for Nicolò to exhale.

“Okay.”

Yusuf blinks. “ _Okay_?”

“Okay,” Nicolò nods. “Let’s get married.”

“Are you - are you _serious_?” Yusuf asks incredulously. “You couldn’t have waited until we landed? Wallahi, Nicolò, you will be the death of me.”

“I _have_ been the - oh.” Nicolò’s mouth drops open. “ _Oh_.”

Yusuf can barely see Nicolò through the force of his own grin. “I propose to this man and all he has to say is ‘oh’.” He swivels around to Quynh and Andromache. “Are you hearing this?”

“Loud and clear,” Andromache chuckles. Quynh has collapsed against her, curled tight with barely restrained laughter, and it’s like there’s no storm outside, no enemies waiting on the shore, nothing but the brightest parts of their endless lives stretched between them to illuminate the hull in warm, hazy light.

Yusuf turns back to Nicolò and takes his hand again. “Let me do this properly,” he says, solemn despite the giddiness rising in his chest. “When we land, after the job, we will find somewhere and I will marry you the way you deserve.”

Nicolò’s eyes glitter in the din. “I love you,” he whispers feverishly, barely able to push the words past his trembling smile. “I love you, I love you, I love you. My _husband_ ,” he says with such awe, such reverence, that Yusuf can’t help himself - he surges forward and kisses him, inelegant but strong, pressing every particle of his joy to Nicolò’s lips. Nicolò takes him gladly, greedily, drinking beyond his fill; he’s distantly aware of Quynh’s raucous howl of approval and a polite clap from Andromache, but it’s nothing compared to the all-consuming radiance that spills from their joined bodies. He feels more than whole - he feels endless.

 _Alhamdulillah,_ he thinks, breathless with gratitude. _Thank you for leading me to him._

Nicolò pulls back for air, smiling so wide the usual lines of his face are almost completely smoothed over. Yusuf chases his lips, peppering kisses to his cheeks, murmuring nonsense to the blush that rises in his wake. _Thank you, thank you, thank you_ , he says with every feather-light touch. _Thank you for my husband_.

“My husband,” Yusuf repeats, pushing his forehead against Nicolò’s, so close they share a single breath. “I love you too.”

“Hey,” Quynh pipes up, “you’re not married yet.”

Yusuf kicks out, missing her shin completely. “We’re married,” he insists, still staring intently at Nicolò’s crinkled eyes. “It’s done, you saw it, he’s my husband. There.”

He can’t see it, but he’s certain Quynh is rolling her eyes. “You said you wanted to do this properly, so actually, you’re engaged. Besides, I want a ceremony.”

“ _You_ want a ceremony?” 

“I want a ceremony,” Quynh confirms. “And rings. Rings are popular now, aren’t they, Andromache?”

“I don’t like rings,” Nicolò says. He reluctantly draws back from Yusuf but keeps their thighs flush, a constant, buzzing line connecting their bodies. “Too ostentatious, no?”

“Necklaces, then. What about that one?” Quynh points at the pendant nestled against Nicolò’s breast. It’s a simple silver charm he picked up in Baghdad in the early days of their travels, when the trust between them was as fragile as a broken wing and ached twice as bad. He wore it for months before allowing Yusuf to see it up close, to translate the carefully-etched surah it bore: _Our Lord, perfect our light for us and forgive our sins. You have power over all things_.

He remembers the heavy silence that followed, the downward turn of Nicolò’s gaze. _It is a reminder_ , Nicolò had said. _I don’t want to forget how I got here._

Yusuf had realised something important about Nicolò in that moment, something he can see writ large in the dips and shadows of his face when Quynh draws attention to the pendant. There is an incredible kindness to Nicolò, and it comes from anger. There is not one without the other, turned inward or thrown to the sky; both erupt in equal measure, the balance of a perfectly swung sword, forever giving and taking. If he forgets where one ends and the other begins, he risks being swallowed whole.

_Believers, turn to God in repentance with the intention of never repeating the same sin._

A reminder.

Yusuf shakes his head. “We can find something at the port, there’s sure to be -”

“No, hayati. Here.” And there he goes, his indomitable Nicolò, ducking his head to pull the cord over his crown, offering it with a small, private smile. “For you.”

The pendant glints in the low light of the cabin, held aloft in Nicolò’s slim, rough-hewn hands. Yusuf’s eyes trace over the script, almost completely worn down from all the centuries, and he swallows unsteadily. Nicolò slips the necklace over his nape, adjusts the pendant so it lies firmly above his heart, allows his fingertips to linger on Yusuf’s breastbone.

“Much better than rings,” he manages to choke out. Nicolò looks at him with such softness, such unrelenting affection, that Yusuf knows he isn’t the only one thanking God for the man before him, the real gift of their undying lives.

He swears that he’ll give Nicolò a proper wedding, a ceremony, all the finer things he knows Nicolò refuses to admit to appreciating. He’ll marry him in Southampton, in Medina, in every city they’ve ever visited and all those they haven’t, in every mosque and church and temple that throws its doors open to the sunshine. He’ll give Nicolò the world if he asks; he’ll give Nicolò his everything. 

Anything for the gentleness and the fury. Anything for his husband.

Yusuf turns to Andromache and Quynh. “After we’ve freed these people,” he vows, “we will have a proper ceremony.”

Quynh fixes him with an inscrutable look. “You won’t run off without us?”

“I swear,” Yusuf intones. “When we meet again, we’ll get married.”

“I’m holding you to that,” Quynh says. She’s tugging something from her collar - a necklace, Yusuf realises, the long, thin charm she has worn for as long as he’s known her. With a swift motion she pulls it from her neck and drapes it over Andromache’s head, far quicker than Nicolò had to Yusuf. It fits, though; Andromache’s nostrils flare with surprise that settles rapidly into familiarity, her hand coming up to cup the pendant. 

“Are you proposing again?” she teases. Quynh beams.

“Of course.”

“Romantic fool,” Andromache murmurs, and presses a firm kiss to her cheek. It’s the most affection she’ll show in company but Yusuf knows without a shadow of doubt that she’s as deliriously in love with Quynh as he is with Nicolò. It’s symmetry, he figures; they’re not halves or quarters but their own wholes, reflecting each other’s light, forever linked in something he can’t hope to understand. He knows there was another before him and Nicolò, that death is not a stranger but a constant travelling companion, but for that moment he feels truly, honestly immortal. If there is any reason for their existence, surely it must be this. 

He noses along Nicolò’s hairline, closes his eyes as Quynh goads Andromache with increasingly passionate proposals. The motion of the sea is lulling him into a half-rest and he sways with it, the harmonic to and fro, content as they continue their passage to England.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://eurythmix.tumblr.com)


End file.
